China charges ethnic Uighur man with 5 murders

BEIJING—An ethnic Uighur man has been charged with murder in the knifing of five people last week in China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The regional government's website said Friday that Aizitiaili Mamuti knifed passers-by outside a supermarket in the city of Korla after an argument with his family. It said the 27-year-old had a history of gambling and had been punished for three earlier knife attacks.

Tensions have long brewed between Xinjiang's Turkic Muslim Uighurs and Chinese migrants, although it wasn't clear if ethnicity played a role in Mamuti's choice of victims in the March 7 attack. The report said four of those killed were Han and one a member of the Muslim Hui minority. One of seven others injured was Uighur, it said.